Black. Gay. Father. Vegetarian. Buddhist. Liberal.

Donald Trump Isn’t Really Reaching Out To African Americans

August 23, 2016by terrance

Donald Trump Isn’t Really Reaching Out To African Americans

Contrary to recent headlines, Donald Trump isn’t reaching out to African-Americans. He isn’t even talking to us. He’s talking past us, and saying exactly what his alt-right base wants to hear him saying to black folks.

Donald Trump is telling African-Americans that our biggest problems are simply the result of listening to the wrong white people.

Republicans have a long history of asking the wrong question when it comes to African-Americans. They ask, “Why aren’t more of them supporting us?”, instead of asking “How are we failing to address their concerns, so that more of them will want to support us?” The latter is the harder question, as answering it requires change on the part of the GOP. The answer to the former is easier: They don’t know what’s good for them. It let’s conservatives off the hook, and puts the onus on African-Americans for being too dumb to know what’s good for us, and thus mindlessly voting for Democrats. The contempt plainly flows from there.

That’s who Trump was really talking to, under the guise of addressing African-Americans. He’s not really talking to us, and he most likely knows it. Trump claims that, if elected, he’ll get 95 percent of the African-American vote when he seeks reelection. Trump may have convinced himself of this, but even running mate Indiana governor Mike Pence couldn’t keep a straight face when he heard it. If Trump really wanted to reach out to African-Americans, he’d go to where we are and talked directly to us. More importantly, if he really wanted African-American support, he’d listen.

Donald Trump is no more interested in really listening to African-American voters than he is in talking to us. His “outreach” allows him to at least say that he reached out to black voters, but signal to his “white right” base where he really stands, while possibly convince a few more white, college educated voters that they aren’t really backing a racist if they vote for him.

Like this:

Related

Oh, come on. Christian Bale has a point. If Moses were around today — “hearing voices” and acting out — he’d probably be diagnosable as schizophrenic. After all, when people “hear voices” today, they end up as mental health patients, not prophets.